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Phone As Your Next Computer?
Octagon Most writes "Newsweek magazine ponders if a mobile phone will be 'Your Next Computer' and enlists Frog Design to mock-up an 'Integrated Fusion Device'. With mobile phones selling at a rate of 650 million per year and climbing, there are already three times as many phones in use as personal computers. PalmOne's Jeff Hawkins predicts that devices like the Treo will become the new centers of our digital lives as millions of people own phones but not computers."
Someone at Palm predicting their device will become the center of our lives.
Seriously. Screen size? Input? Output? Assorted other sundry capabilities?
Phones will not replace computers as they currently stand unless our technology begins to approach near Star Trekian levels (which I'm not entirely ruling out, but won't be for a little while at least). Sure, *some* people might use phones instead of computers, but that's because if they used computers they wouldn't be using computers to their full capacity. They just need an addressbook and a few stupid games anyway, so let them have their PDA-phone. Me, I'll keep my computer.
I have three "computers". One is a 1ghz laptop, the second is a desktop 486 (which works just fine for email, IRC etc) I also have a Nokia 6600, which is a series 60 (symbian) phone. It has a 100mhz arm processor powering it, and takes MMC cards for extra storage. It too can do email (IMAP or POP), irc, ssh, and also browse the web (using Opera). Since you can program for it with C++ or Java, there's not a lot you can't then get it to do For a lot of people, it almost does everything they want of a computer (writing documents on it is a bit icky, even with a bluetooth keyboard. Won't be long until someone's done a good word processor for it. It already supports printing via BlueTooth). So, I'd say it's pretty likely that many people (non tech types) will quickly get smart phones like (or just beyond) mine, and just use those
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
In any case, until hands shrink or eyes focus more tightly or web sites start publishing for 100x100 displays, there are going to be big monitors and keyboards that will likely be connected to big boxes of some kind for the forseeable future.
MR. PHONE: Yes! It will be 87 degrees and a little windy! By the way, not satisfied with your lover's size? Ask me how we can increase it by up to 3 inches! All herbal!
Hmmm.
They go for $29.99 because they suck and they're old news. Dead product.
Check out the Treo600 from PalmOne (formerly Handspring). It has a keyboard too and runs Palm OS5. Combine this with Sprint's flat-rate (10 bucks a month) high speed data, and you enter a whole new world Beave.
I don't work for PalmOne, but I have had a Treo600 since last October, and I'm here to tell you, while it doesn't replace my computers, I can run VNC on it and CONTROL every computer I use. And telnet, and SMS, and IM, and e-mail, and play cool games. And take pictures and video. And slide in a 512MB SD card. And did I mention it plays MP3s, WAVs, OGGs, **AND** Shoutcast streams? Awesome sound quality. At least as good as an iPod. And it's a kickass phone AND it fits in my freaking pocket! It rocks. You have no idea.
And I'm a "professionial." White-collar type. Not some zit-faced hip-hop kid.